ALLEGAN -- Detectives used interrogation techniques that could be considered coercive when they interviewed accused murderer Dena Thompson in early December, a sociology professor skilled in police interrogations said today.

Richard Ofshe, professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, said detectives repeatedly told Thompson, 38, that she could rebuild her life with her two children if she told the truth and admitted to helping her husband, Kristofer Thompson, kill her ex-husband.

"The girls are in play as the linch pin," Ofshe said today during an evidentiary hearing.